I am a writer

I’ve had some people really disappoint me lately, and it’s taking a while to get over it. Maybe I won’t. Who knows?

I’m going to be blunt for a minute here. I really don’t like writing all that much. No, no, seriously. I hate trying to find the right words to get what’s in my head out into words that make sense to other people. HATE it.

I am a reader first, writer second. Always have been, always will be. If the stuff I liked to read was easy to find, I wouldn’t have time to write at all. I’d be reading all the time. :D

It just so happens I like what I like and I’ve found it pretty hard to find enough of those things to keep me satisfied all the days of my life.

So I write to satisfy an itch.

I also do not read just to find out what happens in a story. I read to experience feelings.

That’s also why I write. I write to create a story that will make me feel things, and so that I can then read and enjoy those feelings a second, third, fourth, eighteenth time.

I love reading my own books. I mean, I love it. LOVE, love, love it. I’d just as soon read something I wrote as write something new. That’s no harder to understand than understanding why someone wouldn’t want to do that. Some people enjoy the excitement of new, new, new, while some people enjoy the anticipation of something they already know is coming. If this weren’t true, roller coasters would be a one-ride event. Most people who love roller coasters do not just ride once. :D

People are different. People claim to understand that, and then they make all these mistakes of thinking everyone should experience life and the world just like they do, as if they have no concept of what it actually means that people are different.

I want to write more in my series, but to tell the truth, I’d probably never get around to it if I didn’t have people waiting for those books. It’s not that I don’t want to write them; it’s that I don’t need to write them. Except I do. Because money. :D

But internally? I’m not driven to write stories. I want to write stories. But I only want to write what I want to write when I want to write it.

I am a die-hard re-reader. I have books I’ve read twenty or thirty times easy and that I’ll probably re-read again. I have books I re-read every year or two.

Frankly, my own books fall into that category.

I really do write for myself. And that means I write just as much as I want, and when I need to write more than that because of external factors, it is very definitely work. And honestly, once it gets above the level of want, it’s also not fun. And it’s a chore to try to make it fun all the time.

I want to have written all the books in my series that I know are coming so I can read them. More than once, preferably. :D If I couldn’t enjoy one of my own books more than once, I absolutely would consider it a failure. The only reason I write them is to read them.

But I do understand. People are different. Some writers love writing to the exclusion of all else, and would do nothing but write, and some just like to do it when the itch strikes and tolerate it as a means to an end the rest of the time. Not recognizing that fact is the first step to becoming an asshole. :D

But making the definition of a writer contingent on the why of it is also one more step to becoming an asshole.

I’m a slow writer, for reasons that probably have a lot to do with the fact that I’d rather be reading, and the fact that I have perfectionist tendencies that I have to fight all the damn time, and the fact that I don’t actually like the process of writing very much at all, even though I swear to God, I write every damn thought in my head down at least forty times, so you have to wonder if I’m deluding myself about not liking to write. :D

And here goes. I know the drill. Why write? Why not get a different job that isn’t so hard for me?

Because I like writing, that’s why. :D

I can’t help it, but I have to say this. Why is it anyone else’s business what I choose to do to earn my living? Why do I have to LOVE it to the exclusion of all else if what I’m doing is working just fine for me?

I make my living on the things I write, but hey, don’t call me a writer, if that’s what it takes to make you feel better. What do I care?

I’m a writer and I get to choose to disagree with you on that. :D I write, and I’m a writer, and why I write is no one’s business but my own.

Basically, this is a kiss my ass post. :D

It’s for all the people who want to define writer in a way that excludes me just because I don’t approach writing from the same angle they do.

Because they’re big fat liars. Because they say they don’t care, but they spend so much time defining what a writer is and is not that it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that they care very much who gets to call themselves a writer.

Go on, then, if you’re one of those people on the road to being an asshole. Maybe you’re already there. Who knows? Kiss my ass. :D

I am a writer.